I’ve heard of similar shenanigans at a math department back in the late 80s or early 90s (from a former grad student who had escaped the mess). Personality differences escalated to whisper campaigns, which then escalated to two or three lawsuits for slander and other things, if I recall correctly. I also remember hearing that the end result was the two primary instigators had mutual restraining orders.

The mess was allowed to get rather big before anyone did anything about it.

I don’t know if it’s gotten worse in recent years or if climatology is more prone to litigative assault than other fields, but this sort of stuff has gone on for a while. I bet I could find examples going back centuries. Sometimes personality conflicts or people just being jerks can end up in court. We aren’t necessarily seeing an unusual degree of breaking of norms.